Two years after Fire Emblem Gaiden, Nintendo brought the series to the Super Famicom. The story of Monshō no Nazo ("Mystery of the Emblem") goes back to Archanea, the land from the first game. A year has passed since Marth supposedly defeated Medeus and brought peace to the land. Hardin and Nyna have married, forming the Archanean Empire, consisting of Archanea, Aurelis, Macedon and Grust. Prince Marth is sent by Hardin to investigate a rebellion in Grust and suppress it. There, he discovers that Hardin has been extraordinarily harsh on Grust's populous. Being the kindhearted fellow he is, Prince Marth recruits many of his old friends from the first Fire Emblem, and fights against his former allies of the corrupt Archanean Empire.

Characters

Marth

The Prince of Altea is a bit older but not exactly wiser. After chasing rebellions in Grust and Macedon, Altea falls into Hardin's hands...

The new emperor of Archanea has completely flown off the handle. He marches around with the Gradius lance that Camus used to wield.

Tiki

She's grown up and as the God Dragon, she is now a force to reckon with. She's one of the few allies on your side who can damage Medeus.

Medeus

Who here isn't surprised that he's back? Only this time, he's in an even more powerful form.

From a gameplay perspective, Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem plays like the first game without any notable innovation. Mounted units can get off their steeds at any point, but that's one of the only changes. There's a much heavier focus on the storyline, with chapter introductions and much more dialogue between characters. The interface has been considerably overhauled, so you can actually see your movement range when you highlight a unit, and stats are easily viewable. The characters move much quicker, too. The graphics have also been upgraded, but compared to other Super Famicom titles being released at the time (notably Final Fantasy IV), Monshō no Nazo's graphics are relative antiquated. On the plus side, the animation during the battle scenes is amazingly fluid, and they can now be turned off if you prefer quick play. The sprites look fantastic, and there are plenty of nice background details, like the clouds in the background or the glimmering heat waves in the deserts. You can even make out the twang of the bow strings after arrows are fired. Though minor, these touches add a lot of life to the otherwise primitive graphics. The music has also been upgraded, but some of the songs haven't been implemented particularly well and sound rather hollow.

Fire Emblem: Monshō no Nazo (Super Famicom)

There are two campaigns, or "chapters," contained in Monshō no Nazo. The second chapter, entitled "War of Heroes" is new, but the first chapter is the aforementioned remake of the original Fire Emblem using the updated graphics and interface.

Released on May 14th of 1996, the fourth installment in the Fire Emblem series marks an introduction of major new game play elements, many of which current players of Fire Emblem are likely to recognize. Most notably, Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu ("Genealogies of War") introduced the "weapons triangle", a rock-paper-scissors relationship between types of magic spells and melee weapons. For example, spears are powerful against swords, swords are powerful against axes, axes are powerful against spears. For magic, fire beats wind, wind beats thunder, and thunder beats fire. There are also light and dark magic spells, which exists outside of the established triangle. Additionally, if a mounted unit has any extra movement remaining, they can continue to move after attacking. The foundations for the support system and many others were also first laid in this game.

Fire Emblem 4 leaves behind the adventures of Marth and focuses on a whole new land. The back story is quite typical - long ago, twelve heroes vanquished the dark god Loptyr using twelve divine weapons. After the war, each hero established kingdoms where the descendants of the original twelve continued to rule. Each heroic line kept one of the divine weapons for themselves and the balance of power maintained peace. The story of the game proper begins when Verdane, the one kingdom lacking in any lineage to the twelve heroes, invades Grannvale, a kingdom comprised of many houses related to the ancient heroes. Soon, the whole continent is at war, as various events occur that disturb the old balance of power. So much for peace through divine weapon proliferation!

Seisen no Keifu paved the way for a lot of new features to be refined in later incarnations of the game, and deviates from the standard formula in ways that have yet to be revisited in any other Fire Emblem game. For instance, halfway through the game, a terrible tragedy strikes your army. The story then fast forwards a few decades, to focus on the main characters' children. One of the most interesting elements of this has to be "Love and War" system. During the first half of the game, players can attempt to make their units to fall in love with each other. When they reach a certain level of intimacy, they'll get married, have kids and pass on their divine blood and individual skills on to the children. When next to each other on the map, lovers will get a chance to score a critical hit (marked by swirling hearts around the attacking unit before the battle animation kicks in.) The stats of parent characters also determine the starting stats and growth patterns of the children. If certain characters fail to fall in love, there are some default units that will fill in the void. Most of those are pretty weak.

First Generation

Sigurd

Main character and descendant of the holy knight Baldo. He is heir to the holy blade Tyrfing, which closely resembles the Falchion from Fire Emblem 3. Has the distinction of being the first Lord in the series to be an exceptionally powerful unit.

Deirdre

The mysterious maiden of the forest is a long lost descendant of Naga, the dragon of light and Loptyr, the dark god. She weds Sigurd after fighting alongside him.

Arvis

Heir to the house of Velthomer and the great sage Fala's amazing Valflame spell. He also carries the blood of the dark god Loptyr.

Ayra

A descendant of the master swordsman Ordo and inheritor of the Astra Sword skill, which lets her attack five times in a row. She is a princess of Isaach, a nation recently ruined in the current wave of turmoil.

Adean

She is a noble in the house of Junguvi, the house of the hero Ulir. As a cleric, she has no weapon skills whatsoever and is unable to fight back when Verdane attacks her castle.

Quan

One of Sigurd's best friends and wielder of Noba's holy lance, Gae Bolg. He married Sigurd's younger sister Ethlyn and rules the Kingdom of Leonster.

Eldigan

The king of Nordion and long-time friend of Sigurd and Quan. He's a descendant of Hezul and wields the mystic blade Mystletainn.

Second Generation

Seliph

The son of Sigurd and Deirdre and all around twerp. He must finish the war that his parents started.

Julius

The dark prince born from all the blood of Loptyr through the union of Arvis and Deirdre. He's a master manipulator who rapidly usurps power from his father and plans to take over the whole continent.

Julia

Julius' twin sister and polar opposite. The blood of Naga flows strongly in her veins, and she is very skilled with light magic, fire magic and healing staves.

Leif

The son of Ethlyn and Quan has matured into a strong fighter under the stewardship of Finn. Together, he and Finn try and protect Leonster to the best of their abilities.

Shanan

Isaach's lost king and wielder of the holy Balmung sword. He's a powerful Sword Master and versed in Astra Sword, like his aunt Ayra.

Manfroy

Head of a cult that worships Loptyr and seeks the revival of the dark dragon.

The way in which chapters are presented is different as well. All of the maps are huge and feature multiple castles to conquer, making each scenario far longer than in the previous games. However, there are fewer scenarios in general, with a total of twelve stages. If your main castle falls, it's game over, but you can assign defenders to individual castles as well. Shops, arenas, blacksmiths, storage and fortune tellers can all be found in castles, plus units can be promoted in the main castle without the need for items. Conquering castles on the map triggers more events and generates new objectives. The sheer size of the maps gave mounted and flying units phenomenal advantages. There are some instances in the game that demand that players' armies haul booty, which can be a problem to characters not on a horse. The amount of available characters in each chapter has been reduced and each unit is given a special skill to minimize the bench warmer count. All units are deployed at all times, and most are unique to their class.

Not all of the changes are for the better. The individualized skill system makes certain staples, such as advancing attack (getting a second hit in after your enemy attacks your unit if their speed is high enough) and critical hits into skills that only a select few units have. These skills aren't balanced very well, especially in the second half of the game. Many of the more interesting skills were rebalanced and revived in Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance for GameCube. Characters also have thirty levels total - the levels don't reset after a class change, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. However, to gamers used to maxing characters out before promoting, it feels like a rip off when characters can't enjoy the full stat gains from their promotions. The biggest peeve of Fire Emblem has to be the fact your characters cannot freely trade weapons. Each individual unit has their own wallet, which they can use to buy new weapons and repair existing ones. Like in most Fire Emblem games, weapons have limited uses, but if a weapon runs out here, it doesn't disappear from inventory, but rather remains as a broken weapon, and can be completely repaired at an armory.

The graphics have improved quite a bit over the previous game, with far more detailed graphics, much better battle animations and cool special effects. The soundtrack is much better, too, with a huge selection of tracks. This game is often touted by many Fire Emblem fans as the best of the series, and should definitely be played just to see how different it is from the others.

It's not really what you'd call "online console gaming", but Fire Emblem got a game for the Satellaview. The four chapters consisting of the Archanean Senki ("Record of Archanean Wars") add some welcome back story to various characters. All of the objectives were time-based, seeing how the games were only on-air from 4 to 7 PM and the designers couldn't rely on all players having a BS-X cartridge to download games to. The interface and characters tie in with the first and third game in the series. The four scenarios are:

1 - Fall of the Palace

Archanea's palace is surrounded by Dolhran troops. Get everyone out safely.

2 - Red Dragon Knight

Minerva, Princess of Macedon is a renowned dragon knight. She was ordered to invade Aurelis, but would have none of that. In this mission, she must save the high priest Frost from a renegade dragon knight general.

3 - Thieves of Justice

After hearing of the fall of the Archanean Palace, Rickard goes to loot it. Trying to stop him, Lena goes to the Palace with Rickard, Navarre and Castor to make sure innocents aren't being harmed.

4 - The Time it Began

Two years after the fall of Archanea, the Grustian Black Knight Camus goes searching for Nyna. Word has it that Medeus has ordered Nyna's capture and sent a Manakete named Bulzark to do it. The player's objective here is to get Nyna to safety.

Additional Screenshots

This is the last Fire Emblem game original series creator Shouzo Kaga developed with Intelligent Systems and Nintendo. This Super Famicom game was released for the Nintendo Power system, where consumers purchased blank rewritable memory carts and had games of their choice written to them at various convenience store chains. It later received a proper retail release, although this is extremely difficult to find and is quite expensive - the limited special edition box set is even pricier! This game is a throwback to the older Fire Emblem games, featuring more and smaller chapters and a wide range of units to choose from. A lot of skills from Seisen no Keifu have been taken, lock stock and barrel. It also introduced the interface and artwork style that would later be used in the Game Boy Advance titles.

Thracia 776's story follows Prince Leif. before he meets up with Seliph in the 7th chapter of Seisen no Keifu. Thracia has been eying Leonster land for conquest for years, and while every nation is at war, why not take advantage of the opportunity, especially when supplied with extra soldiers from Arvis and company?

Leif makes his way from the small village of Fiana nestled in the mountains towards the capital of Leonster itself. He gathers a small force there, drafted from rebels across the land. A lot of things about the story fly in the face of continuity, since Prince Leif starts off damn weak in Fire Emblem 4 and Leonster is still overrun with Thracian soldiers.

Thracia 776 introduces rescuing, which has been a staple of Fire Emblem games ever since. If a unit has low HP, another with a higher Build stat (a rating similar to "constitution" in the previous games) can whisk them away to safety. Unlike later additions, characters have chances to raise their Build when they level up. Granted, these rises are extremely rare. A lot of abilities incorporate the Build stat. Enemies with lower Builds can be captured, have their possessions pillaged and released. Thieves can steal unequipped weapons or items from enemies that weigh less than their Build stat. With all the waves of enemies that you'd be thrown against, stealing enemy weapons becomes a necessity at times.

One system some players might find irritating is the Stress system. Every action a unit does bumps their stress meter up a notch. If stress rises higher than their HP, they have to rest for the remainder of the whole stage. Stamina drinks can eliminate stress, but they're expensive and rare. Certain chapters require specific characters to be present, so the stress system can screw players over at times. A few stages also have annoying "Fog of War", so your characters can only see spaces adjacent to them. In general, this creates one of the toughest games in the series. On the plus side, there are now bonus "gaiden" chapters you can find by completing certain objectives in various stages. These extra stages are vital for gaining levels and finding hidden characters.

Characters

Leif

The main character and prince of Leonster. He wields the Sword of Light which Deirdre originally gave to his mother Ethlyn.

Finn

Quan's former squire and a lance knight of Leonster. He rushed Leif to safety when Thracia and Freege invaded Leonster.

Eyvel

A sword master and mayor of Fiana. She turns out to be a member of Sigurd's army that survived Arvis' ambush and lost her memory.

Nanna

Leif's main love interest and daughter of Raquesis.

Linoan

Duchess of Tahra, one of the major cities in Leonster.

Quite a few characters from Fire Emblem 4 make appearances in this game. Please note that there is a rather irritating stat leveling bug where characters continue to gain in a stat they've already maxed out (alas, you don't reap the benefits of this!) with the first version of Fire Emblem 5, which was later fixed.